Demand Response (DR), also known as electricity demand response, is the response observed when wholesale electricity prices rise or system reliability threatened, then an user receives incentive signals (including direct compensation signals) from power supplier to reduce the load, or the user receives electricity price increase signals. The response is that the user would change their habits of power consumption, or would shift timing on their electrical load. Therefore, the response would protect the power grid stability and inhibit short-term price spikes.
Currently, the proportion of air conditioning (AC) load in the entire grid is growing. Because the growth in air conditioning load, power grid load is rapidly growing as well. Thus, given the limited grid capacity, this growth compounds further the difference between peak and valley in power delivery. Therefore, implementing demand response in consumers' air-conditioning equipment would achieve more balanced power load control in a significant effect. But at the present time, a large number of consumers are still using air-conditioning equipment that works under fixed output. Therefore, demand response can be implemented only as “on” and “off” states. When demand response is set to the “off” state, that means usage of the air conditioning is stopped. With this demand response control method, one cannot take advantage of certain air conditioning equipment capable of dynamic output adjustment with various upper output limit settings. Therefore, this binary demand response method would cause great inconvenience to air conditioning users.
On the other hand, the current demand response implementation for air conditioning control and does not take into account temperature requirements of the user during the control period. Under the circumstance, the user can only passively accept the consequence of rising indoor temperature. This is not helpful to provide the user with a positive experience in air conditioning usage.